Quick Review: BHive Tasks 4.0

My day job mandates that I be productive and organize my bosses to the best of my ability. While I may be able to keep track of their to-dos and schedule, when it comes to my own, however, I'm literally a mess. This stems all the way back to college when I was known as the post-it note queen by my roommate. I just couldn't bring myself to use an organizer which gathered dust in the corner. I'd put them everywhere: on the TV, on the wall, and even on my laptop. Same goes at work too, stickies everywhere including on the case of my beloved BlackBerry. I realized I needed to wean myself off my paper addiction and to go cold turkey I decided to check out BHive Tasks by High Velocity IT Inc.

BHive Tasks is a productivity application available for BlackBerry smartphones that enhances and works in conjunction with the native Task app (it will not work if you deleted the app for more memory). It allows you to create and customize tasks a number of ways and is available for most devices running OS 4.2 and higher. Let's just take a look at a few of the many features included.

Interface

When you first look at BHive it sports a clean, simple and user-friendly interface. It is divided into four tabs: Due, Category, Priority, and Status. This allows you to easily locate and filter through your tasks without having to scroll through each and every one. In addition, you can configure the startup screen to open on any one of these tabs.

Synchronization

If you add a task or create a new category in BHive it pops up in BlackBerry tasks and vice versa. All of the required fields are duplicated in this application so you still have your categories, recurrence options, reminders, etc. This means if you're like my boss and syncs his Tasks with Outlook they'll port over as well. It also means tasks are viewable on your PlayBook.

Mass updates and tasks creation

BHive goes one step further by allowing you to modify and create multiple tasks at a time. For instance you can input reminders for all of your bills or a bunch of items at once. You will need to go through each one if there are different due dates though. In addition, you can select all of your tasks at once and modify their category or folder without painstakingly opening each one.

Shortcuts

One of the things I really love about this program are the shortcuts. Without a doubt it is one of the best features of this application and what drew me to it in the first place. Not only are shortcut keys embedded into the program but even when entering a new task. Using their own form of shorthand you can enter in the due date, reminders, priority and folder name automatically when you hit enter.

Pros

Universal search by name or keyword

Assign multiple categories to a task

Change font size

Import / export tasks via email to share or backup

Synchronization - Task Application / Outlook

Import emails / text messages / calendar entries as one task or one task per line

Cons

Price $8.99

No option to view tasks in calendar

No duplicate task option only create multiple similar ones

Rating

Average rating 4.5/5 stars in Blackberry App World

Conclusions
BHive Tasks is a top notch productivity tool that seamlessly integrates with your native tasks applications to not only deliver much needed functionality but reduces the number of steps when entering or filtering through tasks as well. It helps me stay on top of things without resorting to my post-it note madness. Before, I used to introduce my to-do methods as organized chaos. With this app I'm leaning towards a little more organized and a lot less chaos. Now I have no excuse for my laziness. It's just the thing for those of us who need better organizational skills.

You can pick up BHive Tasks 4.0 at BlackBerry App World for $8.99 and a free trial is available. For a limited time it's currently on sale for $4.99.